Fasteners of various sorts have been around for hundreds of years. Often, a fastener, such as a threaded bolt, is threaded into a bore having corresponding threads. The threaded bolt is rotated, resulting in the bolt advancing into the bore until a head of the bolt engages the material of which the bore is disposed in. By tightening the bolt further, the head of the bolt is firmly seated against the material and the threads of the bolt are firmly interlocked with the threads of the bore. The seating of the head against the material and interlocking of the threads results in the creation of large frictional forces preventing the bolt from backing out under all but the most extreme circumstances. However, although the risk of the bolt backing out is small, in some cases, the resulting consequences of the bolt backing out are large, therefore requiring the use of a safety fastener.
Safety fasteners include additional structures which deform to keep the fastener in a fully tightened position. For instance, in one previously developed safety fastener disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,454,676, issued to Conte (hereinafter “Conte”), the safety fastener includes reeding 11 disposed on a male part 2. The fastener is additionally secured in a fully tightened position by the deformation of the reeding 11 upon a lateral surface of a seat 12 and or conical flaring 14 of a female part 6 which receives the male part 2. However Conte teaches using the reeding 11 to aid in securing the male part 2 in one position only, the fully secured position. Therefore, Conte does not teach female and male parts which may be selectively rotated relative to one another and held in a plurality of positions by the reeding 11. Thus the safety fastener of Conte does not fulfill the need for a fastener that is adjustable such that the male and female portions of the fastener may be held in one of many angular displacements relative to one another.
Further, Conte teaches at best only the deformation of the inside periphery of the female portion once the female and male parts are fully tightened. Conte therefore fails to teach or suggest configuring the reeding 11 to deform both the outer and inner periphery of the female part such that the female part changes shape to a new shape, wherein the new shape resists the rotation of the male part within the female portion.
Further still, Conte teaches at best, the temporary deformation of the female part, wherein once the female part is released from the male part, the parts elastically rebound to their original shapes. Thus, Conte fails to teach either the permanent and/or plastic deformation of the female part by the male part.
Thus, there exits a need for a deformable adjustable fastener having corresponding parts rotatable relative to one another which may be adjusted to a plurality of angular displacements relative to one another, and held in one of the selected angular displacements without backing out or tightening. This is often the case when a fastener is used as an adjustment device, such as to selectively control the opening of a valve. Further, there exists a need for a fastener having a deformable wall which undergoes permanent and/or plastic deformation to increase the resistance to rotation of the parts of the fastener relative to one another once the parts are set in their selected positions. Further still, there exists a need for a fastener having a deformable wall wherein the deformable wall deforms along both an interior and outer surface of the deformable wall during engagement of the corresponding parts of the fastener such that the entire wall changes shape, and not just an inner surface.